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Questions tagged [chess]

A puzzle related to chess, a two-player board game with white and black pieces of varying ranks.

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16 votes
1 answer
370 views

Can you colour these chess pieces?

Here is a new little retrograde chess puzzle! In the position below, only kings and pawns remain on the board. Unfortunately, the lighting in the picture was so bad that the black and white pieces ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 8,594
9 votes
2 answers
956 views

All black pieces are gone II

This recent puzzle inspired me to make a little follow-up along the same lines: What is the minimum number of moves to reach this position? Have fun solving this! :^)
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 8,594
13 votes
1 answer
975 views

All black pieces are gone

What is the minimum number of moves? Source: 1903 Miroslav Havel
kaksi's user avatar
  • 1,047
8 votes
1 answer
620 views

What was the first capture?

Here is a new little retrograde chess puzzle. This one is intended to be (genuinely) approachable - so if you've never tried to solve one of these yourself before, give it a shot! In this game, not a ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 8,594
11 votes
2 answers
366 views

Can you find the missing chess pieces?

I originally wanted to post a new retrograde chess puzzle today. But unfortunately, before taking the picture of the final position, I accidentally knocked some of the pieces off the board :( All I ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 8,594
17 votes
2 answers
2k views

Unneighbourly circuit. Is there a closed rook tour on a 4x4 chessboard where the rook never moves to an adjacent square?

Place a Chess rook on an arbitrary square of a 4x4 chessboard. The rook is allowed to move horizontally or vertically but not to an adjacent square (that is, it must move at least two squares). Is ...
Will.Octagon.Gibson's user avatar
22 votes
2 answers
1k views

What was the checkmating move?

Once again, here is a new retrograde chess puzzle! Recently, I have been trying to build something interesting with all 32 pieces still on the board. In this attempt at that, White somehow comes out ...
Tim Seifert's user avatar
  • 8,594
4 votes
1 answer
69 views

Chess Retrograde Analysis Chain of Captures

White gave black odds of both knights (white started the game without both knights) Neither king has moved nor been in check There is an unknown piece on h6, where was it two moves ago? This is a game ...
Freddieboi's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
94 views

Retrograde Analysis Chess by Raymond Smullyan

Black's first move was d5. The knight on f5 moved exactly 3 times The black king never moved The black queen also never moved Prove that this position is impossible to reach in real game Puzzle by ...
Freddieboi's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

Rooks on a 3-dimensional chessboard

𝑛 is the smallest number of rooks which can dominate an 𝑛 × 𝑛 chessboard. By domination, we mean that all squares of the 𝑛 × 𝑛 chessboard are under attack by the rooks. Since we will be extending ...
AshishMath's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
230 views

Turning circle of the (general) chess knight

Consider a zebra (2,3-knight). Verify that on a 4x6 board, it is not stuck in the center (either of c2,d2,c3,d3) but yet the chess board can be divided into 4 areas, and the zebra can't reach one area ...
Hauke Reddmann's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
456 views

How many Ducks are needed to trap a Queen?

Duck chess is a popular variant on chess.com, but this question is not about it. Just borrow the cute ducks and its movement rule: A duck piece can move to any vacant square on its move. It must move ...
Cheshire_the_Maomao's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
716 views

Nonattacking pegasi on the 12×12 board

There were two questions asked in quick succession about nonattacking nightriders and then camelriders on an 8×8 board. In both cases a "striping" argument provides a decent upper bound. It ...
Parcly Taxel's user avatar
  • 10.2k
8 votes
4 answers
1k views

How many non-attacking camelriders on a chess board?

Just one more fairy chess piece please... The justifications are: A camel is like a knight except that instead of moving in a 2x1 rectangle, it moves in a 3x1 rectangle. Note that, like a bishop, a ...
Laska's user avatar
  • 4,183
9 votes
3 answers
450 views

Determine the chess knight’s tour of a 6x6 chessboard given some hints

A chess knight traversed a 6x6 chessboard and returned to the starting square after visiting all the other squares exactly once. Some of the squares still bear a trace of the knight's visit - the ...
Will.Octagon.Gibson's user avatar

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